Hello,

I was just at my friends Christmas party. She's my best friend actually and we've known each other for about 13 years now. I know her family pretty well. Even with all that I felt so uncomfortable going in there. The more people that showed up, the worse I felt. I didn't eat anything. I stayed for two hours and then told her I was going to go. She wasn't offended and was very gracious, luckily.
My family's Christmas party will be on December 25th. I love my family, I do. When the extended family gets together they like to not be so serious and have a good time. Now, I've been dealing with emet since I was maybe 8 or 9 and i'm 27 now. They all pretty much made fun of me for it (not in a mean way really). They just can't empathize with me. To them it's like being afraid of mice or something. Something so silly that I could get over if I really had to. And to be honest I thought I would have by now. I have stopped talking about it with them and just keep it to myself most of the time (or try to at least). So is it so bad if I want to start skipping bigger family functions? I get full of anxiety and then I have a low self esteem on top of it. I'm trying to better myself and build up my confidence. But what I really want to do is just spend the Christmas week/weekend at home with my fiancé and our kids. I know a party is just one night but is it so wrong to want to avoid all the anxiety and just relax? Does anyone else avoid family functions or things like that?